Nintendo Game Zelda is Now Arabic, Thanks to This Moroccan Developer

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Arabic digital content providers, from
children’s story developer Kids Love Arabic to game reviews site DvLZGaME, are working to expand options for
Arabic speakers around the world; it's a growing trend.

One young Moroccan developer is taking the trend back in time,
taking it upon himself to translate classic Nintendo games into
Arabic, including Super Mario Bros. for SNES, The Legend of Zelda:
Link’s Awakening for Gameboy Color, and Double Dragon for
NES.

Most recently, Mouhssine Zaouia, a 27-year
old translator and developer from Casablanca, spent three years on
his latest project, 1998 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of
Time, arguably one of the best video games of all time. Zaouia
translated everything in the epic story into Arabic, including
title screens, item menus, and all of the speech text. This is his
10th translated title.

You can view the opening sequence with
Arabic translation, and the timeless Zelda soundtrack, in the below
video:

Zaouia finished the project only 2 weeks
ago, but has already seen over 100 downloads for the N64 emulator
patch, which changes the game’s original English into Arabic.
Zaouia explains that since the Arabic addition is a patch to the
original game, and is downloadable for free, he shouldn’t have any
legal issues with the original publisher, Nintendo.

For those who may not be familiar, a video
game emulator is a program that allows a computer or video game
console to emulate or copy another console's behavior, Nintendo 64
in this case. The game can be played with a PC hookup of the
original N64 controller, or with a joystick and keyboard, explains
Zaouia.

The game plays just like the original, with
blocky graphics, classic music, and the annoying fairy Navi
bouncing across the screen. While it’s strange to see Zelda
written in large Arabic letters at first, after viewing some
screenshots from the game, he actually did a solid job.

Zaouia has a day job; he did the whole
project just for fun. “The design, the inverse coding, I did it all
myself,” he says. “But it’s all for fun, I just love this
game.”

He also works as part of a team of game translators at glowtrans.net, and wumd.net, who
have translated several classic titles for Nintendo platforms. As
of yet, they have no plans to monetize or sell the game patches,
they just enjoy playing their favorite titles in their own
language.

Perhaps initiatives like this will alert
companies like Nintendo to the huge fan base they have in the
Arabic market. But until then, indie translations like these will
have to do. Luckily for Arabic gamers, some developers, like
Zaouia, actually enjoy the whole process, even if it did take 3
years.

You can check out some of the other games
Zaouia, or “Megamanz” as he calls himself, translated on his
GameTako
page, or on his group’s Facebook page.